In the video above, Mickie James spoke with Between the Ropes before she participates in the WrestleMania Women’s Battle Royal and at ringside for WWE Raw Women’s Champion Alexa Bliss’ match against Nia Jax. Along with Bliss, James has been playing the mean girl side as the duo has bashed Jax on her appearance over the past couple weeks. James spoke about being on both sides of this type of story and what it’s like.
“I have been on both sides of this storyline. Because it’s such a real thing that you’re dealing with, not just in our world, but in the real world,” James said. “Bullying, it’s such a thing right now in schools and online, so to be able to attack that and come at it in a sorta real way – and the entertainment side of it as well – it’s tapping into people’s real emotions because they can connect to it.”
James was also on the receiving end of a bullying story that most fans remember with LaCool (Layla and Michelle McCool). Most notably, James was referred to as “Piggy James” in that storyline and she spoke about the difficulty that brought.
“I felt that was very difficult for me. It was one of those things– it was Layla and Michelle [McCool] and we all worked together to make it so incredible,” James responded. “To be on that side of it then, and to be on this side of it now, it’s definitely interesting. You have to put your emotions away sometimes because we’re professionals and we’re actor/actresses and we do what we love and are good at. Sometimes you have to take your ‘personal’ out of it and leave [the business side in].”
Back in 2016 at NXT TakeOver: Toronto, James was brought in to face then NXT Women’s Champion Asuka. James noted that she thought it was just a one-off appearance, but it ended up turning into much more for her with WWE.
“I was just so honored to be asked to come back and do that and I really thought it was going to be a one-off thing,” James said. “I’ve learned to not have expectations. If you don’t expect things from anyone, you can’t get let down. I didn’t really have any expectations, I was hopeful this would parlay into something else, but I didn’t want to get my hopes up, so all I could do was go out there and give the best performance that I could in that moment. Hopefully, if it was good enough then they might see something special out of it and obviously they did.”
Again, you can see the full interview in the video above.
If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Between The Ropes with an H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.
